


Forever Is Fleeting

by KeybladeCryptography



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Survivor Guilt, The usual good cheery fun of thousands of children dying in a war in typical Kingdom Hearts fashion, description of death, not graphic but it's there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25048180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeybladeCryptography/pseuds/KeybladeCryptography
Summary: Ephemer is dead. It is time that he pays his dues to the world and the people he left behind.
Relationships: Ephemer & Lauriam (Kingdom Hearts), Ephemer & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Forever Is Fleeting

When his time comes, death descends upon Ephemer like a bird of prey, swift and sharp. The blade held by an unknown figure, the amalgamation of the darkness he’s felt since they entered this strange realm, hums with magic and is cold enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Understanding crashes upon his consciousness like a waterfall. This is retribution for leaving his fellow keybearers, his brothers and sister who were not chosen as Dandelions behind. He was the first to run away from the war but the war chased after him.

It’s a fitting end. He only wishes Chirithy didn’t have to share it. They’ve already done more than enough.

The waterfall fans out into the steady pulse of a bloodied tide, even as his own heartbeat fades. It licks at his lifeline and makes the corners of his vision seafoam white. Ephemer lets it wash over him. This is no hologram or dream. He is going to die. Red, a few shades more brilliant than his scarf mats his curls and stains the collar of his shirt. His breathing slows, matching the pace of the weak draft filtering through the shutters to carry him away. He holds Chirithy close one last time and his eyes flutter shut like the downstroke of a butterfly’s wings.

He’s done his best to carry out the role that Master Ava assigned to him, no matter his doubts and no matter what problems arose. He was an accomplice to the massacre and sacrifice of countless people, but he helped save countless others and everything is as he was told it should be. The Dandelions are ignorant but happy. The oldest of them are no longer children and have started having children of their own, a new generation to keep the light alive. The copycat world is moving on. It has no need for him anymore.

His fellow Union Leaders can do what little remains to be done. (He offers up a prayer to the heart of all things that he can carry the sin of their abandonment, that they will live long and die peacefully.) He’s never been particularly talented, only inquisitive, perhaps to a fault. Skuld is serious and responsible so she’ll keep everyone on track. Ven is unmatched in infectious optimism that transcends all difficulties. Brain is the smartest person Ephemer’s ever met and he bends the rules enough to flow through any system. Lauriam’s studious enough to keep up with him and he has a gentle grace that puts everyone at ease. They won’t be needing Ephemer anymore either, if they ever did at all.

Ephemer smiles until he no longer can, until his muscles go lax and his heart escapes his ribs and flies off into a magic gem sky, free at last.

For a moment.

It starts as pressure, like a hand holding his heart and tightening its grip until it’s painful. Then there’s a sharp tug that pulls him back down until an unseen force slams his heart against the dusty earth, nearly shattering it into a million pieces. Something has drawn him back to the fated battleground. Of course. That must be part of his retribution too. Keyblades surround him like tombstones, marking the graves of the children who died here and he is to join them, a little too late.

There are more than he realized, stretching out beyond his line of sight in all directions. He stands in the center of the crossroads, as he did when he first returned when the world had died. No matter how many questions he asked, he never did find out what it was all for. Was it worth it?

Probably not.

He looks up at the sky. It’s clear and bright, no storms and certainly no Kingdom Hearts in sight. He looks back down at the land. It’s cracked and scarred, with gashes running across the ground and once-tall cliffs reduced to rubble. The hot air thickens around him, forming a translucent afterimage of the body he left behind, a flimsy shell for his fragile heart. He can’t feel his feet press against the ground as he walks on, examining the aftermath of the war. He has all the time in the world. A soft noise echoes off the sandstone in answer to his thoughts.

One keyblade in particular catches his eye - wait, no, he doesn’t have eyes anymore - because it’s about half the height of the others. A corn husk doll tinged with magic sways helplessly at the end of a woven chain attached to the pommel and the blade is coated in a thin layer of chipped pink paint. He gets down on his knees to examine it and he can’t feel the pebbles pressing against his knees. He presses a hand to the ground to steady himself and finds that it’s because they pass right through him. He leans in to study the details of the teeth and jumps when a little girl with a dove white heart pops out at him.

Gravity does not bring him back down.

The girl tilts her head and then she smiles like she’s absorbed the scorching sunlight and she’s overflowing with it. She floats up and peers at him, only inches away. Ephemer flails in midair before he figures out how to drift back so that he can maintain a reasonable level of personal space. The girl seems to solidify and Ephemer looks her over. Her hair is sunkissed and braided with flowers and her once bright eyes are the color of cinnamon and just as curious as his own. She can’t be any more than half his age. “Hi! My name’s Melia! I’ve never seen you before. Were you one of the ones who flew away?”

Ephemer doesn’t get a chance to answer before she continues, talking a mile a minute, “My sister did too! My alive sister who had the same mom and dad as me, I mean. She flew away! She was called a uh . . . a Dandelion, yeah! Her name’s Penny. Did ya see her? Is she okay? I bet she is, because she’s super strong! The strongest person ever. I miss her though.”

For the first time, Ephemer feels foolish for asking a question. No matter what the Foretellers were hiding and no matter what the war was for, of course it wasn’t worth it. “I don’t think I saw her,” he says. He hangs his head. “I’m sorry, Melia.” 

“Oh.” If Ephemer couldn’t see her heart, he’d think he’d broken it. “Well, that’s okay! What’s your name?” He looks back up and she’s still smiling but it’s dimmer. 

“Ephemer,” he says. “It’s nice to meet you.” He offers his hand and she stares at him, confused, before her memory strikes. She shakes her head. Ephemer drops his hand. He can’t touch without a body to touch with.

“Nice to meet you too! Since we don’t have unions anymore, let’s be friends, okay Ephemer? But you gotta be nice and be friends with everyone else too!” He never saw her move, but she’s in his face again, literally. She waves her finger at him and it passes through the space where his nose used to be.

Everyone else? Ephemer turns away from her and while it’s no longer pumping blood, he swears he can feel his heart beating, preparing to take off again. He isn’t sure how he didn’t see them before but there are as many remnants of people as there are keyblades and they’re all around him. Many look familiar, but not enough to name them. A former party member here, someone who sold him a potion once there, and isn’t that an old acquaintance’s cousin? He is surrounded by plainly visible hearts and the brightness blinds him in a way that is beyond sight. It nearly consumes him at first but then it subsides as he remembers that they are all connected. That his heart is a part of this radiant light.

“I’ve got it,” he says. Someone knocked the air out of his absent lungs but luckily he doesn’t need to breathe.

His situation sinks in rapidly, like a drizzle escalating into a storm. He is dead and he is here because he is dead and he will likely remain here forever, alongside all these brothers and sisters. He doesn’t know them yet, but he loves them all dearly because he loves everyone and every world and every heart with all that he is. His love will give him the strength to bear their hurt as his penance.

Even so, there’s a dull twinge, a missing ache in the fact that he’ll likely never see his fellow union leaders or his best friend again. Another piece of the price he has to pay. At least this time, he doesn’t have any outstanding promises to break. He’ll keep his friends in memory. That will have to be good enough.

That is, until the day Ven shows up. Centuries have passed but he’s still alive and he hasn’t aged a day. Ephemer rushes towards him like the wind Ven is named for, darting between spires and stirring up dust. Curious, his brothers and sisters trail behind him, watching from atop hills and behind cliffs as he bursts out into a clearing. “Ven!” he cries and comes to a hasty stop, floating before his friend.

Ven stares at him with empty eyes and steps right through him.

Ephemer spins around, lingering over Ven’s shoulder and follows his line of sight. He wasn’t staring at Ephemer at all, but a hunched over old man with eyes as gold as the ones on the Foretellers’ masks. He is no Foreteller though. The forbidden powers of darkness are etched deep into his heart. Inky pools gather on the ground that has never known water and they coalesce into a familiar enemy, those Heartless known as Neoshadows.

“Please don’t do this, Master. I’m not strong enough,” Ven says.

“Yes you are,” Ephemer says. He’s seen Ven fight and he’s better than he gives himself credit for. His backhand strikes take the Heartless by surprise and lend him a fluidity other wielders lack. Darkness falls easily beneath his quick feet and steady hand. The light in his heart beams strong and powerful spells like Faith and Salvation come naturally as breathing to him. That was all centuries ago. The Neoshadows should be little more than the dust beneath his feet. So why doesn’t he try to defend himself at all?

“Embrace the darkness. Produce for your master the x-blade!” the old man says and the Heartless leap. Ephemer tries to protect him, to wrap his arms around Ven and shield him but the Heartless aren’t deterred, even as the light of their connection pulses out around them. It’s faint. Ven’s master steps forward, the deep wrinkles of his face twisted in disgust as he turns Ven with his foot then plunges the keyblade he has no right to wield into his chest. “Empty creature from Ventus riven, to you the name Vanitas shall be given!”

A monster in the shape of a boy emerges, darkness sloughing off him in waves and weaving around his body. The heat haze hums with tension and Ephemer glances back to see his brothers and sisters draw back. Good. This monster is darkness and darkness is dangerous. Darkness is the reason Ephemer is here. “Yes, Master,” the monster says. It swings its head around wildly and Ephemer freezes. He suddenly remembers how to feel cold. It’s impossible to tell if the monster’s looking at him through its mask because all light seems to turn away from him. A moment passes in dead silence before the monster sighs and slumps to the sand, lacing its fingers with Ven’s.

It’s then that Ephemer realizes that the dark creature isn’t a monster at all.

He isn’t a monster lying on the desert floor clinging to his other half or when he returns the next morning, howling at his absence. He isn’t a monster when he echoes the words of hatred his master uses against his enemies or himself. He isn’t a monster when he’s beaten into the ground or when he gets back up to raise his keyblade against Ven and his friends. He isn’t a monster when he fades into oblivion, by force or by choice.

He is only a boy who can never return home, no matter how badly he wants to, just like everyone else in this graveyard. He is another brother Ephemer can’t save.

A year passes in the blink of an eye when you’ve been bound to the World for millennia, so only a few moments pass between Ven slipping away for the second time and the day that Ephemer recognizes a shock of pink hair against the dull landscape like a desert rose. Much like Ven, Lauriam is still alive, except he’s gotten a little older.

Except he stands alongside Vanitas and against the light, willingly, knowingly. Except the flowers he used to care for have been weaponize, soft petals slicing through the air and enemies. Except his identity has been stolen and distorted with the Recusant’s Sigil and he is called Marluxia. Except the kind and gentle Lauriam that exists in Ephemer’s memories is dead. Ephemer wonders what his sister would think if she could see him now.

“You know this isn’t right,” Ephemer tells him but Lauriam - no, Marluxia - doesn’t listen. His gaze glints gold and ruthless, like Ven’s master, as he stares straight through and straight ahead, watching the blooming sunset. 

It’s a brilliant one to be sure, but it was better in Daybreak Town. 

Day in and day out, Ephemer perches on the pillar beside him and they watch the minutes tick by together. (It’s selfish of him. His brothers and sisters worry.) Marluxia is waiting for something and Ephemer doesn’t know what, not that it matters. Little in this world has changed in a long time. Why would things be any different now?

Ephemer gets his answer soon enough, when Ventus arrives again, alongside six others. Together, they are the seven guardians of light. Together, they fall, like everyone else in the graveyard.

Unlike everyone else, together, they rise again. For the first time in a long time, for the first time since the first Keyblade War, they changed the world. Ephemer looks at his brothers and sisters and they all understand what they must do. In unison, they all march to their graves and pick up their keyblades. All except Ephemer.

“Need some help?” he asks and Ven’s friend, the one leading the fight . . . Sora, isn’t it? looks back at him, confusion clearly written on his face. Ephemer likes him immediately. Maybe in another life, they could have been friends.

Ephemer’s brothers and sisters rise into the sky and leap into battle, taking Sora with them. Their hearts are connected and they glow together like constellations. They are all guardians of light and together, they pierce through the darkness. The demon tide recedes. The second Keyblade War has not ended yet, but a battle has been won and for Ephemer’s brothers and sisters, that is enough.

Bursts of light and color like supernovas go off all around him, severing the ties that bind his brothers and sisters to the graveyard. Their hearts rise and fall away like shooting stars, free at last. Ephemer chases after them, but he cannot follow. Of course. He has not earned such freedom. He smiles and waves goodbye to the brothers and sisters that remain until he is alone.

Forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, it's a quarter to three in the morning so. Yeah.  
> Is the title pretentious? I feel like the title's pretentious. I usually hate dealing with titles... Ah well.  
> I have [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CrepusculeChaos) so that is an option if you want to talk to me or just see all the cute fanart I retweet.  
> Okay thank you for reading I'm going to sleep now.


End file.
